How a Hollywood Fixer Played Both Sides of a War Between Frank Sinatra and the Tabloids

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By the 1950s, Wheaties had gained massive popularity as the “Breakfast of Champions.” Packaged in a bright orange box with famous sports figures on the cover, the iconic breakfast cereal was marketed to consumers as a healthy way to nourish a fit and active lifestyle.  According to a tip to Confidential from one of Frank Sinatra’s lovers, the megastar always ate a bowl of Wheaties before sex, then con-sumed three more between encore performances. That tidbit inspired the magazine’s May 1956 story headlined “Here’s Why Frank Sinatra Is the Tarzan of the Boudoir.” Otash joked that Sinatra’s face should grace every box. Still pissed-off at Confidential for the 1955 “Wrong Door Raid” story, and no doubt annoyed that his latest album, In the Wee Small Hours, failed to hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, the thin-skinned Sinatra threatened to sue.

Sinatra wasn’t the only celebrity getting fed up with Confidential for tarnishing their polished personas. Stars were growing litigious and the lawsuits were piling up. Tobacco heiress and socialite Doris Duke sued for $3 million after a story reported she had an affair with a former Black handy-man and chauffeur. In the lawsuit filed by Jerry Giesler, she claimed that Confidential’s implication of “indecent acts” was “completely and entirely false and untrue,” exposed her to “disgrace, contempt and ridicule,” and that the sole purpose for her suit was “to defend her good name against the ugly, unfounded and scurrilous attack” and “to discourage this magazine and others of its ilk from making similar unfounded attacks on innocent people.” In 1957, the case was settled for a substantial sum.

In the wake of these and other lawsuits, Harrison began giving way to his original policy of never settling a claim. Otash, who was receiving ample praise from clients for his meticulous investigations, reassured Harrison that the stories he investigated had enough backup to withstand legal chal-lenges. But nobody bats a thousand, not Babe Ruth, not Joe DiMaggio, and not Fred Otash. 

In July 1957, Confidential outed Liberace as a homosexual. Ever flamboyant with coiffed hair and custom-made suits, tabloid trouble came after he made unwanted moves on a young and straight male press agent while on tour in Akron, Ohio, and again in Dallas. 

Otash must have been overconfident about the story’s veracity, given that the self-proclaimed piano virtuoso had hit on him in a Hollywood dive bar while working as an under-cover police officer. But Liberace didn’t take it lying down and publicly proclaimed he was heterosexual. Otash scoffed at the career-saving move. What he didn’t bet on was that Liberace had concrete proof that the dates of the accusations didn’t jibe with his touring schedule. He sued the magazine for $20 million. The case was eventually settled for $40,000, which he donated to charity. 

Maybe Otash was spread too thin. In addition to Confidential, he had taken on a heavy workload to build his business while continuing an active social life. He was also spending as much time as possible with his now six-year-old daughter, Colleen, who looked forward to their weekly outings at Kiddieland. The popular amusement park was frequented by Hollywood elites and Sunday bachelor dads like Fred, who, dressed in tailored suit and tie, somehow managed to squeeze his strapping six-foot-two frame into the small carnival rides with his little girl. What else could explain his sloppy work on the Maureen O’Hara story?

Red-haired and radiant, O’Hara was catapulted to Holly-wood stardom in the 1940s after a series of critically acclaimed roles in hit films such as director John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, The Black Swan starring Tyrone Power, and opposite an eight-year-old Natalie Wood in the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street. When the magazine uncovered that the Irish-born actress had been more than canoodling with her Mexican lover while seated in the last row of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre during a matinee, she filed a $5 million libel suit.

True, she was having a romantic liaison with a Mexico City hotel man who fit the exact description of the man the two Grauman’s ushers spotted with O’Hara. But the day they said it happened didn’t match the day stamped on her passport, proving that she was in London at the time and not in the famous Hollywood movie theater.

Simply put, Otash had screwed up. He felt terribly that he left Harrison legally vulnerable and wanted to make it up to him. That chance came in 1957 when he got a call from his own attorney, Arthur Crowley, asking him to help Sinatra beat a perjury charge that had resulted from Confidential’s “Wrong Door Raid” story.

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Crowley explained to Otash that a California Senate committee investigating tabloid magazines had dug into the two-year-old story and subpoenaed the records of Hollywood Research Inc., as well as Marjorie Meade, DiMaggio, and Sinatra to testify. DiMaggio was back in New York and out of reach of a subpoena but gave a written deposition stating that the Confidential story was sensationalized. Sinatra, however, testified under oath that he stood by the car smoking cigarettes as he waited for DiMaggio and the others to talk with Marilyn inside the apartment, an assertion that both detective Phil Irwin and the landlady contradicted during their sworn testimonies. The committee members seemed to believe Irwin was telling the truth because he had been beaten up for selling the story to Confidential. “Right now it is our educated guess that he could be indicted for contempt at least, and for perjury at most . . . he could go to jail,” Crowley told Otash. 

To make matters worse, the LA district attorney had convened a grand jury to determine if DiMaggio, Sinatra, and the others involved should be indicted for conspiracy to commit criminal mischief.

Crowley needed Otash to corroborate Sinatra’s claim that he hadn’t been in the apartment. Otash didn’t know if Sinatra had committed perjury or not but didn’t think he should go to jail over such a trivial matter. If he took the case, Otash would be working for and against Confidential and for and against Sinatra—a dicey proposition. When Crowley implied that Sinatra would not sue the magazine over the Wheaties story, Otash saw an opening to use the conflict of interest to his—and the magazine’s—advantage. He went to Harrison and explained the symbiotic angle that working for Sinatra would give his boss one less lawsuit to worry about, which was just fine with the besieged publisher.

Otash went to work. He drew up a diagram of the apartment building so he could study its ins and outs. Then, with a court reporter present, he interrogated the landlady. The break-in happened at night, but she claimed she saw Sinatra “plain as day.” It was meant as a figure of speech, but Otash felt he could turn it to Sinatra’s advantage.

After the interview was over, he did a midafternoon search of the area for any outside lighting. There was none. Nor were there any streetlights near the apartment building. When he returned that night and examined all the doorways, he couldn’t see a thing. He still wanted more evidence to bolster his case, so he gathered information from the weather bureau that established there was no moonlight on the night of the raid, making any visual identification impossible. Unless Sinatra was serenading her personally, there was no way the landlady could make a positive ID. 

To button things up, he visited his old pal and fellow detective Barney Ruditsky, who, due to poor health, had been excused from testifying. Ruditsky told Otash that Irwin lied to the committee about staking out the apartment all night when, in fact, he was driving around with his wife earlier in the evening, trying to patch up his marriage after she caught him repeatedly lying about his infidelities. 

Otash had enough to prove Irwin was a liar. He didn’t ask or want to know if Sinatra was in the apartment because he had enough to absolve him. He also knew that Ruditsky would fall on the sword for Sinatra out of loyalty to his well-paying client Joe DiMaggio. But he sensed Ruditsky was holding back information.

“Something doesn’t add up, Barney,” Otash said. “You had Marilyn under surveillance and knew exactly where Sheila lived.” 

“So?” Ruditsky replied.

“C’mon, you were too good at your job. How the hell could you not identify Sheila’s apartment?” 

Ruditsky chuckled. “Of course I knew. I broke into the wrong goddamn apartment to save DiMaggio from doing something crazy.” 

“You did the right thing, Barney,” Otash said.

“A lot of good it did me,” Ruditsky said. “I lost my license. Don’t be a schmuck like me, Fred. The last thing you need in this job is a conscience.”

Otash laughed knowingly.

Although he had privately concluded that Sinatra was indeed in the apartment, Otash cast enough doubt on the landlady’s story and Irwin’s credibility that the committee exonerated Sinatra, who, thanks to Otash’s work, avoided a grand jury indictment. Prior to this, the two men had been friendly acquaintances who always exchanged pleasantries whenever they bumped into each other. Now Sinatra avoided Otash like the plague because he knew he knew the truth.  Surprisingly, the committee didn’t indict Irwin despite having evidence that he lied. But they did cite Otash with contempt when he wouldn’t reveal his sources or turn over his Confidential files.

Crowley eagerly sprang into action on Otash’s behalf. He accused the committee of violating the state’s professional code of conduct, which prohibits a private detective from divulging information except to law enforcement agencies, reminding them that they were not a law enforcement agency nor entitled to the information. He also scorched them for wanting to divulge that information so they could grandstand about it on national television. After a closed-door session, the committee backed down.

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Excerpted from THE FIXER: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn. ©2024 Josh Young and Manfred Westphal,  and reprinted by permission from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group.

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